I’ve never sponsored a video before. I never thought that I would. Companies sponsor videos, and I’m just a guy posting his camera settings on a blog, so why would I do this? For a couple of years I’ve wanted someone to sponsor me, but here I am, sponsoring someone else’s content.
My hope is that this sponsorship simply gets the word out. Hopefully it will reach some new people. Why is this important? Why might it be “worth it” to do this?
First, I appreciate Andrew and Denae’s YouTube channel. They’ve been publishing solid content for years. Their channel has been helpful to many photographers, and especially Fujifilm photographers. I’m very happy to support them, because I want Andrew and Denae to continue to create great content. It’s good for the Fujifilm community.
Second, the film simulation recipes that I’ve published on the Fuji X Weekly blog and the Fuji X Weekly App are having a real impact on photography. I was speaking recently to an official Fujifilm X-Photographer, and she explained to me how the film simulation recipes are opening up photography to people who are intimidated by photo editing software, or don’t have the time (or maybe the desire) to learn it, or perhaps don’t have the resources to obtain it. There are people who are photographing with Fujifilm cameras using recipes who otherwise would not be photographing. That’s amazing! Besides that, people are having a lot of fun with them—I often get messages or comments stating how the recipes have made photography a more enjoyable experience. People also tell me how they’re more productive since using these camera settings, as it saves them time. These are great things! Recipes are having a positive effect on real people across the world. It’s a real honor to impact photography in these ways.
While many people in the Fujifilm community are familiar with Fuji X Weekly and film simulation recipes, there are also many who aren’t. I want to reach those people, and maybe have a positive effect on their photography. I hope they’ll find something helpful on this website and the app. By sponsoring Andrew and Denae’s video, I’m supporting their work, which is helping people, and I’m bringing awareness to what’s going on over here, which is helping people, so it’s a win-win.
If you’re a company who’s interested in sponsoring me, I’d love to hear from you. If it’s a win-win situation for the Fujifilm community, I’m sure we can work something out. For everyone else, I hope that you enjoy Andrew and Denae’s video about the Fujifilm X-E4, which you’ll find at the top of this article—if you’re thinking about buying that camera, you’ll find some good advice that might help you decide.
Editing was necessary in the past because most people had compact cameras with poor image quality; big cameras had not enough processing power to reduce the digital noise, not enough dynamic range and sometimes not good enough colors. Although time consuming in both learning and editing there was an advantage in using software capable of reading raw. Now it is rather a choice than a must, I prefer to choose brands whose colors are pleasing to my personal tastes, but your recipes open a whole dimension of moods and expressions, which I still prefer to using raw converters because I think is easy there is to change things they most of the time get that “artificial” look, while processing the raw straight in my X100S, with recipes or not, get a look always natural, a photography.
I appreciate your thoughtful comment and kind words! I agree that editing RAW used to be absolutely necessary. Thankfully technology has come a long ways. Thank you for the input!